Five ways for rights holders in sport to use digital marketing to sell out their festive season fixtures this December.

December is a very busy month for sports in the United Kingdom and maintaining the attention of fans can become an obstacle for rights holders during the festive period.

Increasing ticket sales is the primary issue during the festive period because fan attention is focused towards Christmas and Boxing Day, which can have a negative effect on ticket sales. With strategic online advertising, ticket sales objectives can be accomplished even during the busy festive period.

Here are our top five recommended methods to drive ticket sales and ensure your venues are packed during the festive season:

1. Programmatic advertising– Is a method of online advertising where software is used to purchase digital advertising. What programmatic does for advertisers is that it automates the process of buying ad space, eliminating human interference making the process more efficient. Programmatic advertisement exchanges help advertisers locate the optimal spaces to advertise, depending on the amount of time spent on specific sites by their target audience. How efficient is the process, you ask? The complete process of bidding, selection and placing the advertisement is done in 200milliseconds, that’s the time taken to blink your eyes.

2. Paid social media – It’s no secret that social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat are redefining advertising on social media. Sports rights holders have realised this fact is demanding an increase in the quality of content produced, and therefore seek to reach out to their fans with tailor-made content. So, why leave ticket sales out of the content strategy?

Paid Social Advertisement on Facebook

Think of it this way, paid social media allows you to deliver advertisements to your fans based on gender, location, interests and more. This has made it a lot easier for marketers to target their audience and know the potential number of fans they are reaching in real time.

3. Organic social media– Your fans flock to your social media every day, making it the best possible medium to promote ticket sales. Typically a sports fan spends time browsing through your feed watching videos and sharing pictures.

Creating unique content in multiple video formatswith an attractive call to actions will ensure your fans are aware of the ticket sales status and availability. A wider reach of your ticket based messaging can be taken to the next level if you promote your ticket sales content with paid social media.

4. Paid Search – Paid search advertising is a type of online advertising that is similar to paid social and programmatic, in that you bid on keywords and audience demographics, however it differs as you only advertise within the sponsored listings section of a search engine. See below example with our swim charity client, Aspire.

5. Display advertising – Forget about contextual advertising, focusing on display advertising would be our suggestion. Display advertising is a type of online advertising that comes in several forms, including banner ads, rich media and more. Display advertisements, unlike text-based ads; rely on elements such as images, audio and video to communicate ticket sales messages.

If you want to know more about we can help you with your ticketing strategy, drop us a mail – hello@weplay.co